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Metinvest’s initiative welcomes young residents of Zaporizhia to recreate in western Ukraine.

Strong Generation Camp – Future offers psychological rehabilitation for the war-affected children of Metinvest’s conscripted and displaced employees, as well as children who lost their loved ones in the war.

Children have spent two weeks in a camp in western Ukraine. Overall this summer, Metinvest arranged three trips to the Carpathians for around 85 children of employees of its Zaporizhia-based enterprises. The young explorers had an exciting and productive programme full of activities.

“In addition to psychological rehabilitation and sessions with professional psychologists throughout two weeks, children had art therapy, trekking in the mountains and along the rivers, excursions, various events and fun activities. Children had an opportunity to open up and unlock their creative potential, which is equally important for this kind of programme,” notes Stanislav Lysytsia, Programme Coordinator.

Anna Kupriy meets her boys, Artem and Maksym, as they come back home, having completed a psychological rehabilitation course. She is very thankful that her children could get their minds off the war and have a good time.

“We happily agreed to this trip, as children need some distraction from the difficult situation in our country. They stayed in touch the whole time, which was great as we worried a lot. This rehabilitation project is a very helpful and well-done initiative. Children are under constant stress, always up in the air, which is tough even for a stronger mind of an adult. At the camp they didn’t hear any air-raid sirens, were calmly learning and developing, as they should. We are very grateful to Metinvest and the international partners for providing this support and taking care of our children,” says Anna Kupriy.

The children who travelled to the Carpathians are happy as well.

“We went trekking, danced everyday, spent all the time outside. We were caught in a hailstorm, and that felt wonderful, I liked it. Also, we talked to psychologists, played with them, and watched cartoons. We missed our parents very much, and felt even more excited when they welcomed us back home,” shared Maksym.

The Kudinkov family are also delighted with the trip. In addition to classes with art therapists and psychologists, Artem and Nastia had time to climb the mountains and visit Lake Synevyr in these two weeks. Svitlana Kudinkova meets her children as they return.

“Strong Generation Camp – Future is a very cool initiative and it’s absolutely necessary for us. We are grateful to Metinvest for caring about our children. It’s so good of the company. The children are happy. When they were at the camp, we didn’t have much time for communication as they were so busy: they had psychological rehabilitation classes, went on hikes, experienced off-roading, bathed in vats, went trekking to Synevyr and mountains. This rehabilitation is helpful to children, because they’ve been living under stress and anxiety over nearly two years since the war began. Thankfully, this trip was a good opportunity to improve emotional well-being and receive professional psychological counselling. They came back high-spirited and energised for learning,” noted Svitlana Kudinkova.

The Saving Lives humanitarian initiative takes care of the physical and psychological recovery of Ukrainians affected by the war. In concert with Protez Hub, the project has been helping the military and civilian amputees start a normal life again since 2022. To date, 60 people are undergoing prosthetic treatment and rehabilitation, with 20 of them having already received prostheses worth up to €30,000. The project has also joined the Unbreakable Mom rehabilitation programme run by Masha Fund.

Since 2022, as part of joint events in partnership with Metinvest the programme has helped nearly 300 mothers and their children recover from the effects of the war. In July, the Saving Lives humanitarian initiative and the UN Global Compact Ukraine with the support of Zaporizhia Regional Council and other partners opened the first Oplich Hub community centre for psychological rehabilitation of war-affected Ukrainians. The Hub has helped 125 people so far. The humanitarian project is set to open such centres in other cities and towns where Metinvest operates.